The Universe and Everything in It
by May a Chance
Summary: The last time Spiorad Tyst closed his eyes, it was the second of Febris in 24 BBY. It was a simple matter that took his life, really; the craft he was aboard had malfunctioned, causing the hyperspace coordinates to send them into a planet at the speed of light. That was alright. The first time Steve Rogers opened his eyes, it was July 4th, 1923. That? Not a simple matter.
1. Permanence in a Changing World

**This has been a bit of a long term project that began when I connected Steve's thinking in Civil War to something or other one Jedi Master in Legends said to a padawan; the difference between soldiers and Jedi is that Jedi are trained to disobey orders when they believe that it is the right thing to do. Then it went down in my notes with the unfortunate prompt of 'Steve Rogers is a reincarnated Jedi' which basically is what I blurted onto the page here. Laugh. Whatever. I'm continuing whether you like it or not.**

* * *

The last time Spiorad Tyst closed his eyes, it was the second of Febris in 24 BBY. It was a simple matter that took his life, really; the craft he was aboard had malfunctioned, causing the hyperspace coordinates to send them into a planet at the speed of light. That was alright.

There is no death, there is the Force.

The first time Steve Rogers opened his eyes, it was the Fourth of July in 1923. That? Now that was not a simple matter. Death was supposed to be the gateway into a life of peace and nonexistence, not a room with dirty, white walls and people (humans, if he was correct) talking _incessantly_.

And thus Spiorad's (Steve's) life was divided into two sections; the Before, as Spiorad, and the After, as Steve.

The After was very different than the Before. In the Before, his world was soft and quiet. One fluid piece of an immense puzzle, surrounded by hundreds of people similar to him. It was a world where he never worried about financials, only the people around him. The After was… _chaos_. A world without rules that were followed, where everyone around him was so _annoying_ and _immature_ like the youngest of the children Spiorad had helped with.

Chaos, yet harmony.

Steve was three years old when he first came in contact with anyone but his new parents. His new mother took him to their Church, and gave him a hug and tweaked his nose and left him.

As Spiorad, he had dealt with many new children being taken to the Temple. From this, he gave Steve knowledge that he should burst into tears.

Steve did. He wailed, stomped his feet and lifted his arms out towards her as he was lifted into the arms of one of their- what were they called? Nuns. Yes, nuns.

They plopped him in a room with several other children his age, told him to be good, and left him under the supervision of another nun.

Alright. That wasn't all that different to what Steve was used to. Normally there had been more caretakers around (Jedi younglings really were the most energetic children in the galaxy), but there we are. It was something they called the nineteen-twenty's.

Which basically meant that no one had enough money to do anything, and everybody was prepared to do whatever it meant to keep those around them safe.

And it meant that they were coming out of a war.

And it meant that tensions were high with Germany.

(Steve was a smart boy, and had been a smart Jedi, he knew that all of this meant that there would soon be another war, seeing as Germany was also broke and pissed at a religious group called the _Jewish_.

This new world was one Steve came to realize was not so different from his own. When he imagined each country as a planet or possible system, it became further easier to visualize. Whilst everyone was of the same species, they fought like wookies and trandoshans.

Another little boy plopped down next to Steve. Dark brown hair, cut like a Jedi youngling's minus the Padawan braid, and dark eyes. Maybe a few months older than Steve, and with a big grin crossing the boy's face. He introduced himself, and within minutes they sat together with a pile of something called _tinker toys_.

It was 1926. Steve was three, he had never met his father, and his mother worked all day everyday so that they had somewhere to sleep.

The year's celebration came and went. 1927 rolled in and passed, and Steve started school, at the Church. He began to relearn simple mathematics, and art, and history. For the first time, started learning French, something he found to be easy. Easy enough it was boring.

1928 came in, and Sarah Rogers (who worked in a TB ward, because there wasn't much work for Irish woman) caught the illness she had been treating for years. The affects were immediate. Steve was seized from her care (it had happened to him before, and was inconsequential in the long run) and placed in an orphanage run by stern nuns and a priest they called Father Henry. The nuns were all severe women who dressed in black and white, and only one (Sister Edna) was truly kind to Steve. The Father was also stern, but not as much so, and acted as something of a father to the parentless children in his care.

Then it was 1929, then 1930 and so forth. The school that Steve learned in was not necessarily a good school, but it was fine nonetheless.

1930 was also the year that Steve was first beaten up at the school, because Steve was smaller than the other children.

He didn't see where the little pellet came from, only that the first boy spluttered and scrambled back, then disappeared into the thick of children in the schoolyard. Another pellet spluttered through the air, and Steve tracked it, as though time slowed around him and then it went crashing into the second boy. Two more pellets, and Steve's back remained pressed against the brick wall but the other children were gone.

A glance up revealed the perpetrator and a face was revealed- firm, square features framed by dark brown hair. A cocky smile grinned at him and Steve found himself grinning back despite himself.

"Those punks didn't hurt you too bad now did they?"

"I had 'em in the ropes."

The boy grinned at Steve and Steve's grin widened. He straightened himself, and thrust a single hand forwards. "Steve Rogers." His voice was firm and calm, pitched high with youth.

"Bucky Barnes," the other boy, Bucky, replied and then he grinned ruefully. "Actually it's James Buchanan Barnes, but only my Pa calls me James."

"It's a pleasure," Steve said as Bucky shook his hand lightly.

The following weeks came with greater ease than the previous ones; Bucky introduced Steve to his family, a kind father named Edward, a kind mother named Ethel, and three youngers sisters named (Re)Becca, Betty and (Isa)Belle. He liked to say that the names were a bit of a curse, each of them having nicknames beginning with the letter B.

Steve laughed when he said this, and assured Bucky that, no, that was not something odd to him. After all, he had grown up around children named Depa and Hobbie, in the Before.

Time passed and then it was 1931 and Steve was eight years old and the shortest of anyone he knew and the one who spent the most days curled up in bed, hacking his lungs up as the pneumonia settled, once again, in his lungs.

1932\. 1933. Steve told Bucky about the Force, pulled a blanket from across the room and Bucky grinned wildly. 1934. 1935. The years were fast and short, nothing more than a blink over the course of time. 1936. 1937.

The war grew closer, Steve knew.

The Force told him as such, an insistent whisper in his ear. Or perhaps, more accurately, a feeling that surrounded him every minute of every day. The world would cry out in agony, when the slaughter that Steve knew was coming arrived. It would be a massive death toll, millions of pointless deaths.

1939\. 1939.

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August _(so close, so close, so close)_ , September and then a headline in the New York Times:

 **GERMAN ARMY ATTACKS POLAND; CITIES BOMBED, PORT BLOCKADED; DANZIG IS ACCEPTED INTO REICH**

It was September first, of 1939, and the war Steve had long been dreading began.

Germany was the country that the world had warred with some thirty years previously. Poland was their larger, next door neighbour.

The initial death toll, Steve knew, was undoubtedly immense, echoing in the Force like a thousand cries of pain as their lives were stolen from them in an endless inferno of flame and agony. Steve grimaced as the aftershocks rang out across the galaxy, an unending cry like a blast of radiation in intensity.

September fourth, or 1939, and it became four countries in the war, Britain and France declaring war when Germany refused to pull out of Poland.

Steve was sixteen, and time continued onwards; the people worried, but life went on. Adults (and Steve too, now) went to work; the children played in the streets and soon it was 1940- Steve was seventeen by the end of the year, and then the headlines read:

 **French Sign Reich Truce, Rome Pact Next; British Bomb Krupp Works and Bremen; House Quickly Passes 2-Ocean Navy Bill**

And the word of the beginning of the Battle of Berlin. And the Blitz in London began.

The world cried out day after day, hundreds of times over and the pain of the world was like a stifling blanket.

He and Bucky moved in together, Steve working at the grocers most of the time, and trying to sell his comic strips when he wasn't. They lived near the docks, where Bucky worked ten hours a day. They shared laughs, over silly little things because silly little things was better than the news, filled with nothing but the shouts from across the sea.

The peacetime draft order was signed on September, 1940.

The draft itself began precisely a month later, October 16 of the same year.

Of the twenty million men between the ages of 21 and 36, half were rejected for health reasons or illiteracy.

He and Bucky were eligible, then. But not for long- Bucky, eighteen at the time, would have three years until he was eligible for the draft. Steve had four, but was mostly one who would be declared ineligible for health reasons.

1941\. January, February, March, April, May. June, July. (The fourth). August. September, October, December.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

 **JAPAN WARS ON U.S. AND BRITAIN; MAKES SUDDEN ATTACK ON HAWAII; HEAVY FIGHTING AT SEA REPORTED**

Then, on the eighth of December, the headline that had been anticipated since the day that Japan began sinking American ships:

 **U.S. DECLARES WAR, PACIFIC BATTLE WIDENS; MANILA AREA BOMBED; 1,500 DEAD IN HAWAII; HOSTILE PLANES SIGHTED AT SAN FRANCISCO**

On the eleventh of December, another long since anticipated headline, one that everyone had known was coming for two years because 'The Land of the Free' could not have possibly stood by and watched the slaughter of innocents when there was something they could do.

 **U.S. NOW AT WAR WITH GERMANY AND ITALY; JAPANESE CHECKED IN ALL LAND FIGHTING; 3 OF THEIR SHIPS SUNK, 2D BATTLESHIPS HIT**

A whole wave of able-bodied men from across the United States enlisted on the twelfth, and with the previously drafted men the United States army was strong, if not necessarily prepared for the bloodshed to come.

Christmas came and went; Steve and Bucky exchanged trinkets they had made of wires in their spare time.

It was 1942, February, when they changed the draft order, and when they took Bucky.

"I've enlisted," Bucky told Steve and, in the Force, Steve could feel his pain and his fear and, perhaps most of all, his horror, because he hadn't enlisted.

In March, Bucky shipped out and on the last night, Steve made his fifth attempt at enlisting when he was met by a man named Abraham Erskine, who was German defected to the United States.

"So, you want to go overseas, kill Nazis." Dr. Erskine queried Steve from that little room and there was a note in his voice that whirred gears in Steve's brain.

"Pardon?" Steve questioned back.

The man nodded. "Dr. Abraham Erskine," he introduced himself. "I am with the Strategic Scientific Reserve."

"Steve Rogers," Steve offered in reply. "Out of curiosity, if I may ask, where are you from?"

The man spoke like Mrs. Weber, who was from Southern Austria and insisted that it was a thing of upmost importance.

"Queens." The answer was prompt and calm, well-practiced and oiled like gears in a clock. "Before that, Germany. This bothers you?"

Steve tilted his head back and smiled. "Not in the slightest."

"Where are you from, Mr. Rogers?" Dr. Erskine filtered through the files before him with curiosity. "Hmm. New Haven? Paramus? Five different attempts in five different cities."

Steve let out a long grimace. "I think you have the wrong file, Dr."

"It's not the exams," Dr. Erskine insisted. "It's the five tries. But you didn't answer my question. Do you want to kill Nazis?"

"Is this a test?" He inquired back.

"Yes."

"I don't want to kill anyone," Steve replied. "Whilst I believe that death is not the end, I do believe that death takes from us what we hold most precious. I have no family, have lost people dear to me. I don't wish that upon anyone. But the Nazis are torturing millions, and that is not something that I can stand for. I don't like bullies; it matters not where they came from."

Dr. Erskine nodded slowly, and then a long smile slide over his face. "Well there are so many big men fighting this war. Maybe what we need is the little guy, huh?

There was a long pause.

"I can offer you a chance," the doctor said, very slowly, "and only a chance."

Steve set his jaw. "I'll take it."

The aging man smiled, displaying yellowed teeth on his warm face. He pulled a stamp from the side of the desk in the room, and proceeded to stamp over Steve's enlistment forms.

With that, the other man disappeared from the room leaving Steve alone.

Two days later and Steve had arrived at Camp Lehigh in New Jersey, where he was greeted by a cluster of much taller men, of whom Steve was the shortest by several inches. All were broad muscle, sleek and undoubtedly having enlisted of their own free will.

The Camp itself was beautiful, twenty acres of land in a rural area of New Jersey. The forests of green trees rose up around the central camp with thick paths leading out into the forests. The trees were leafy and immense, with the occasional oak rising into the sky with its twisty, gnarly branches.

They murmured under their breath, exchanging glances and words of curiosity.

Had he concentrated, Steve was certain that he would have been able to overhear most every conversation in the room, but really? That was quite a rude thing to do.

A half hour later, scarce enough time for bags to be dropped at assigned beds and uniforms to be changed into, the group of ten or so young men stood in a single line. Steve stood in the front, near a foot shorter than any of the others but filled with more courage than the rest of them combined.

Dressed formally, a woman with carefully styled, chocolate brown hair addressed them. "Gentlemen, I am Agent Carter. I supervise all operations of this division."

One of the other men let out a harsh bark of laughter. "What's with the accent, Queen Victoria? I thought we were signing up for the U.S. army!"

Agent Carter let out a long pulse of irritation in the Force, but did not allow it to flicker across her features. "What's your name, soldier?"

"Gilmore Hodge, your Majesty."

"Step forwards, Hodge, right foot forwards."

"We dancin'?" Hodge's cocky grin betrayed his emotions, and there was smug satisfaction radiating from him like the repulsive scent of roadkill.

A swift fist to the face and Hodge was stumbling back, clutching at his jaw.

Another officer, this a severe, aging man, stepped forwards. Moments previously he had stepped from one of the army vehicles. He gave Hodge a distasteful look. "Get your ass out of the mud and stand in that line."

"Yes'sir."

"General Patton said that wars are fought with weapons," he announced in a clear and strong voice, "but they are won with men. We are going to win this war because we have the best men." Then he looked at Steve and grimaced. "And because they're gonna get better. Much better. The Strategic Scientific Reserve is an allied effort made up of the best minds in the free world. Our goal is to create the best army in history. But every army starts with one man. At the end of this week we are going to choose that man. He will be the first in a new breed of super-soldiers. And they, will personally escort Adolf Hitler to the gates of Hell."

It was all as expected, to Steve, varying exercises testing physical capabilities and mental characteristics. At the end of each day, Steve lay in his bed and relaxed, breathing the fresh air in like the Force and letting it wash over him, purging his body of his pains and healing what had been harmed.

Steve brought a flag to his CO and earned himself a ride back to camp in a vehicle.

He covered a grenade with his own body, would have died had it been real. He earned himself a smile of approval from Dr. Erskine, and a huff of irritation from the Colonel.

In the wind, he caught a murmured, "He's still skinny."

On the final night at Camp Lehigh, Steve sat on his bed with Dr. Erskine across from him, both quiet. The silence was a seldom comfort to Steve, the darkness outside nothing more than a distant glimmer of fear.

"Why me?"

It was Steve who broke the silence, his voice soft yet ringing in the small room.

Dr. Erskine smiled. "I suppose that is the only question that matters," he said slowly. "So many people forget that the first country that the Nazi's invaded was their own. You know, after the last war the...my people struggled.

"They felt weak," Steve offered. "Small."

Dr. Erskine nodded. "And then Hitler comes along with the marching and the big show and the flags and the...and the..." he waved a hand expansively, a vague yet meaningful gesture.

"And he...he hears of me, my work and he finds me. And he says, you...he says you will us strong. Well, I am not interested. So he sends the head of Hydra, his research division. A brilliant scientist by the name of Johann Schmidt." Dr. Erskine let out a long sigh. For the first time, he seemed as old as he was.

"Now, Schmidt is a member of the inner circle and he's ambitious. He and Hitler share a passion for a cult power and Teutonic myth. Hitler uses his fantasies to inspire his followers. But for Schmidt it is not fantasy. For him, it is real. He has become convinced that there is a great power in the earth, left there by the Gods, waiting to be seized by a superior man. So when he hears about my formula and what it can do, he cannot resist. Schmidt must become that superior man."

Steve lay back against the wall, one knee drawn up while his other leg rested against the bed beneath him. "It made him stronger." Not a question, a statement. The answer was something Steve had known for a very long time.

"Yes, it did." Dr. Erskine considered for a long minute. "But… there were other side effects as well. The serum… it does not simply amplify the body but everything within as well. Good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. This is why I chose you. A strong man, who has known power all his life, will lose respect for that power. Whereas a weak man knows the value of strength and knows compassion."

Steve smiled and let out a soft laugh. "Thanks, I think."

Dr. Erskine smiled gently at Steve, the action reaching his eyes and in the Force he thrummed with a gentle sense of love and care. He reached out, a gentle hand patting Steve's shoulder. "Get some rest," he said lightly. "Tomorrow will be a long day."

Long strides carried the doctor from the room, and Steve flicked off the lights.

The procedural is successful. Steve spends the day in mourning, despite the success. All good things come with a price, he knows. Like this.

He may be stronger, taller, but he has lost the only person who treated him as a son.

Three days are spent on tests, performed by a half dozen scientists who had worked with Dr. Erskine. Then they give him to a senator, tell him to be a dancing monkey.

Steve draws his thoughts out carefully, gentle fingers sketching over a pale, thin page. He drew a monkey, dressed in the horrid uniform they had Steve wear, and sitting atop a unicycle. There was one of the women he worked with, a profile displaying her smiling at a book that rested in her hands. Agent Carter looking severe and rather quite intimidating the first day they had met. Dr. Erskine, wearing a kind smile with the brim of his hat pushed down so that it shadowed his face. His fingers sketched out Bucky's face (kind and smiling and warm, cockiness and self-assurance overshadowing his good soul), shading in the dips of his cheekbones.

The number of bonds sold whenever Steve passed through town rose exponentially, but it was a long time before they sent him over seas. The November of 1942, when the days had grown shorter and had a bitter chill in them.

They shoved him on stage in front of four hundred soldiers in Italy, expected them to clap and cheer like everyone stateside had. Of course they didn't.

The air hung heavy with the feelings of loss and pain, an opportunity for Steve to pull some of the emotions from the air, to soothe the feelings the soldiers felt.

Nonetheless, he was booed off the stage, and he disappeared into the folds of the camp, slipping between tents until he came upon a quiet log at the edge of the camp, where he sat down and fiddled pencils over the pages of a blank book, once again detailing the dancing monkey.

It was Agent Carter who found him there, her dark hair as polished as ever. They spoke for a few short minutes, Agent Carter saying, "Schmidt sent out a force to Rosano. Two hundred men went up against him and less than fifty returned. Your audience contained what was left of the one-oh-seventh. The rest were killed or captured."

"The one-oh-seventh?"

It was the only thing that seemed to matter.

She tipped her head to the side to reply but Steve was already off in the direction of Colonel Philipp's tent. "What?" Was her call after him before she hurried after Steve.

"Colonel Philipps," he asked politely, skidding to a halt by the colonel's desk.

"Well if it isn't the star spangled man with a plan," the colonel said with an amused note in his voice. "And what is your plan today?"

"If I may, sir," Steve said, "would it be alright if I viewed the casualty records from Rosano?" He shifted his weight nervously. "My friend, Bucky Barnes, is in the one-oh-seventh. I just need to know if he's alright."

Colonel Philipps let out a long, heavy sigh. "I have signed more of these condolence letters today than I would care to count. But the name does sound familiar. I'm sorry."

"Is there a rescue mission planned?"

The colonel let out a dry laugh. "Yeah! It's called winning the war." His humour was dry, anything but humorous and Steve forced himself to take a long, calming breath before speaking again.

"If we know where they are, shouldn't it be easy to go in?"

"Son, they're thirty miles behind the lines. Through the most heavily fortified territory in Europe. We'd lose more men than we'd save. But I don't expect you to understand that, because you're a chorus girl."

"I understand more than people like to think," Steve replied icily. "Sir."

He left the tent, a bubble of anger and distress hovering over him the rain clouds in comic books. His strides were long and purposeful.

"What do you plan to do?" Agent Carter called after him. "Walk to Austria?" Her British accent was thick on the words.

Steve strode onwards, long steps carrying him onwards. "If I have to," he replied calmly.

"Steve," Agent Carter snapped at him, "your friend is most likely dead!"

For a long minute Steve pondered this, reaching out in his senses and feeling the world around him pulsing with life and emotions. The trees were still in the wind, tiny candles compared to the other beings. Farther on, some forty or fifty miles, was a cluster of human lives many curled as close together as possible and each crying out in pain and fear. One was familiar, the rest were not.

"No he's not," Steve replied. "And if there is a single thing that I know it is as such; Bucky Barnes still breathes."

This caused Agent Carter a long pause as she caught up to him. "Even so, Colonel Philipps is devising a strategy to get them out of there."

"By the time he's done that, it could be too late! You told me that you believe I am meant for more than being a dancing monkey. I know that you meant that so let me do this. Allow me to go and save my friend and so many others."

Agent Carter gave a pause of consideration. "Then at least let me help."

Something hung in the Force, a heavy sense of dread with a silver lining of hope that left Steve pleading with the Force that he might find his friend alive. Back to him, the Force sung its song.

It didn't matter how brilliant the man was, Howard Stark was the biggest jerk to grace the face of the galaxy.

Steve wasn't entirely sure what made Howard Stark such a big jerk (aside from the over inflated ego, the vast amounts of money with no donations to those in need, the inability to think of anyone else or any other thing that Howard was (womanizer, racist, etc.)). But it was Stark's jerkli-hood that did not allow them to be friends, no matter what the cause of the forth mentioned jerkeli-hood might be.

Agent Carter (Peggy, she told Steve to call her and if _that_ wasn't flirting then Steve didn't know what was.) handed Steve a communications device, and Stark said, "That's been tested more than you have, pal."

He jumped out of a plane.

Unfortunately, that was the easiest thing that Steve was to do over the course of the day.

For hours he hiked through the cold, unending forest. All the pines were the same in the Italian countryside, dark trees in the dead of the night. With every step, he brought himself closer to the suffering of the people captured by the Nazi science division that was known as Hydra.

The middle of the night was as good a time as any to attack a Hydra compound. The time at which humans slept the deepest was around two A.M., but that was okay- the middle of the night was a dead time for just about any species that wasn't nocturnal.

Sneaking in? Cake.

Any Jedi had training in stealth along with things like piloting, healing and mechanics. The muffling of sound with the Force was an easy trick to learn, and it was not long until he reached an area filled with what were- cages? Cages indeed, each filled to the stuffing point with men.

Steve dropped in front of the first cage, his knees bending to absorb the impact.

Only one man inside was awake, a black man with heavy features and a beard growing over his chin. He looked up at Steve and Steve grinned at him, wild eyes filled with delight. "As soon as I get you free," Steve hissed in a low voice, "Wreak some havoc on Hydra, please."

"You can't give me orders!"

Steve unlocked the door, and stuck a hand at the man. "Hell I can't! I'm a captain!"

"And… who are you supposed to be?"

"Ehh- Captain America? Just get out fast and give 'em hell. There's a clearing past the treeline, I'm meet you lot there!"

"You know what you're doing?"

Steve hummed thoughtfully as men rushed past him. "I've punched Adolf Hitler in the jaw over two hundred times."

The men darted off, Steve dashing down halls and opening doors. There was an office, with a large map on the far wall and it was not until he was almost out of time that he entered a cell-like room with Bucky Barnes strapped to a chair.

Unconscious, Bucky murmured gently under his breath, thrashing against the straps that held him to the table. "Three-" another thrash, "two-five-five-seven-" his head jerked back and forth against the cold metal table, "oh-three-eight. Three-two-five-five-seven-oh-three-eight."

It's his serial number, one Steve remembers with the distinct sound of Bucky's voice telling him the number to remember.

"Hey," Steve hushed as he pressed gently on Bucky's chest while he undid the straps, "hey Bucky, it's okay. It's Steve. I'm right here."

Bucky snapped upwards, gasping for breath. "Steve?" His eyes blinked open. "Steve?!"

"We gotta go Bucky. C'mon."

"Steve?"

"I thought you were dead." Bucky's weight rests against Steve's now tall and firm form, being carried away from the table on which he had lain.

"Thought you were smaller. What happened?"

Steve grinned at his closest friend. "I joined the army."

"Did it hurt?"

"Only a little."

"Is it permanent?"

"Thus far, yes."

Bucky made to rush down one hall but Steve held him back. "Not that one- Schmidt's down there." Long knowledge of Steve's abilities made trust hum. He nodded and they turned in the other direction.

The exit from the building was what the films would call dramatic.

Yes, with the fire and the explosions that wreaked havoc on popular holofilms of the Before and that had pleased audiences across the galaxy.

In the clearing Steve had referenced to the black man were some three hundred exhausted, half-starved soldiers of a half dozen different nationalities, all of whom were in high spirits for a group that had broken out of a Nazi factory where they had been held as prisoners of war.

They were a motley sort, two dozen French rebels fighting for the freedom of their country before being captured, perhaps fifty British soldiers and some one hundred American men.

Combined, the nearly two hundred outnumbered the Hydra soldiers ten to one.

Through the forests, they remained silent. Steve walked forwards with grim determination. The whole time, with Bucky leaning against his shoulder as they stumbled, together, through the unending forests of pine.

Morale was low, by the sunrise, unsurprising but a blow nonetheless.

Exhaustion had long since set in, the wounded being driven in and on the stolen Hydra tanks.

The inside of pine trees was edible; throughout the day they had quick, easy meals of the inner bark. Come evening, they butchered a small pile of forest creatures. They cooked them over an open fire while making a mild tea from pine bristles over another fire. The water had come from a nearby stream. Come nightfall they stamped out the fires, set guards up in trees, and settled down for a cold and uncomfortable night.

Steve took an early watch, carefully carving a long, firm piece of wood into a spear for fishing. At his side, Bucky was curled up, shivers wracked his form and every now and again. Steve rubbed his shoulder, and focused on warming the other man with the Force.

Two hours into the night and he woke one Timothy Dugan (who was cheery and Irish like Steve, with a funny little mustache and insisted on being called Dum Dum).

After that he slipped to sleep.

They returned to camp the next day, as many as possible pressed together on the tanks. Only the healthiest (who weren't sick, or injured as badly as anyone else) walking alongside the tanks.

Colonel Philipp's expression was precious.

Steve wished he had a camera on him; it would have lasted much longer.

A long meeting, too long for Steve's tastes but nothing in comparison to the meetings he had been a part of in the Before. Then, the war meetings had been immensely long, sometimes lasting for days as the Masters looked for guidance in the Force. The Peace Keepers of the Galaxy, leading meetings to see where would next be invaded and how they could stop it with an army.

They couldn't, of course; fighting armies with bigger armies was the same as dousing a brilliant orange flame with piles of wood.

Steve's people had understood this, had known that negotiations were always the best way to go about things without information that suggested otherwise. But the Council? It was filled with corrupt beings who cared not for their people.

There were exceptions, but they were few and far between.

Padme Amidala and Bail Organa were both strong examples of those who did care for their people. The former had been born in a small village, and had been elected by her people at a young age and had done her job to the best of her ability. The latter was from a line of leaders, raised in the high society but elected by his people nonetheless.

That evening Steve had free rein to choose his own strike team.

Gabe Jones was among the number. Bucky, of course.

(Who was feeling stronger and wasn't _that_ curious?)

Dum Dum Dugan, whose real name was Timothy. Jacques Dernier, who didn't speak English and it was a saving grace that both Gabe and Steve did. Jim Morita, who technically was not allowed on their team but nobody gave a crap because he was a very talented medic. James Falsworth, who went by an abbreviation of his middle name. Like Bucky.

They celebrated Christmas together, missing their families and each one writing letters home. Everyone got drunk on the Christmas of 1942, and it was someone's idea to write a bunch of letters home in the case of their death, and then carrying them around with them wherever they went.

Steve wrote his in Aurebesh, the bizarre characters flowing easily from his hand as he penned a letter to the world he had once lived in, to the people that he had lost, and to the life he sorely missed.

It wasn't in the case of his death, because Spiorad Tyst was already dead.

But it was nice, nonetheless, to be able to get his thoughts out.

Nobody would ever read the letter, not if Steve had a say in it.

As they bundled the letters together with twine, Bucky smiled at Steve warm and gentle and Steve smiled back.

Two days later they were infiltrating a Hydra base, and four days after that they celebrated the New Year, and the day after that it was 1943.

'43 started off long and dull, the days passing by in an eternal blur.

They went on a mission.

They returned from a mission.

Once or twice, in the dead of the night, Steve awoke to a tingle in the back of his mind warning of danger. Each time the danger passed unseen, leaving behind only an uneasy sleep.

They went on a mission.

They returned from a mission.

The time continued to blur forwards; Colonel Philipps approached Steve about being involved in propaganda films, to keep the morale high back in the United States. And for all that selling lies to the public was not something that Steve encouraged, it was something he understood. High morale meant people continuing to enlist, people continuing to put money towards the war effort. Towards keeping the innocent lives of the Jewish people alive.

Several times, the Howling Commandos were involved in missions that freed people from internment camps, possible saved their lives before they could be shoved into rooms pumped full of gas.

Once (and only once, thank the Force) they destroyed a camp before the bodies could be cleared from the immense rooms.

It was something Steve hoped never to see again.

June 14 and D-Day rolled around, a name that meant nothing until the success on French territory was certain.

The same summer, they raided a Hydra base and captured a scientist. He cracked a cyanide pill between his teeth before they could stop him.

Winter came again, the days growing short and cold, the heavy snowfall making their job dangerous.

There's a heavy note in the Force, one that Steve had only felt once previously. Soft and almost comforting at times, but persistent and like a vice over his heart at others. In the days leading up to Christmas 1944, Steve grew increasingly tense. Once (or perhaps three dozen times), Bucky sat down next to Steve and simply sat there, a soothing presence despite the squeezing pressure around his heart.

The Commandos sat around the fire telling stories- Steve told whimsical tales he had heard growing up from the older crechlings.

The Creches worked as such: fifteen children of five different ages, three of each age. As one age group cycled out (typically over the course of three years, from the ages of 11-13) another age group cycled in. It resulted in an ever changing environment of excitable, energetic children. They tended to be trouble. Each Creche had one Jedi Master (older, at the age most beings retired at) watching over them. The Master raised them from an early age and told stories and made sure they didn't destroy anything. At least not badly. It was one of the few senses of family that a Jedi would ever experience.

Steve told his friends about the far off planet where the people lived in swamps of red smoke. Where they tattooed their skin black in geometric patterns and where they practiced magic. He gave them a name- the Dathomirians.

His friends laughed and grinned, said, "You're always looking to the stars, Cap."

That made the vice a little better, too.

The New Year came once more, and Steve knew the time was coming. They'd received a new mission; capturing Armin Zola.

They caught up to the scientist on a train in the Swiss Alps, a ten second window to make it on the train.

Each of them does and Steve thinks, "I've dodged a bullet."

And then it's him and Bucky in a car with a half dozen Hydra soldiers and all Steve can think is, "Oh crap," because the Force is not to be used to prevent death, it is to be used to keep peace, and what can he do but watch?

Bucky falls and Steve is left staring after him, forcing his body not to follow because _that's his friend Bucky who's been there since they were children who would do anything for me and how can I not follow?_

He falls and falls and falls all that way into the cold snow below.

Leaving Steve behind on the train, the Commandos finding him and guiding him away.

Three days later they raid another base, and Steve's in a plane all alone over Greenland as he shoves at the controls and he knows, he knows that this is the moment he's thought about, that he's felt in the Force, for months.

It's January. Cold so high and so northwards.

Over the radio, he talks with Peggy for a half minute, telling her, "Make sure the guys are okay," and she promises that she will, and then the plane hits the ice sheet.

The plane was filled with explosives.

He had thought they'd blow on impact- then they didn't.

He thought the impact would kill him- then it didn't.

Then he thought that he'd drown in the water melted by the hot outside of the plane- the he didn't.

The water rushed around him and the temperature dropped ever lower.

He knew what was happening, he understood it all too well. Like carbon freezing, he reasoned.

There was a long gash across the length of Steve's back, from flying debris, which sluggishly leaked crimson blood that coagulated over his shoulders in the cold air. A concussion is a certainty, Steve knew, particularly with the pounding headache behind his eyes and the firm pressure atop his head, as though he held a pile of books upon his head.

Soon, he will pass out. Soon.

He does.


	2. Small Things like Change in Society

**To my one and only reviewer, the unnamed guest: thank you. You made my day. I hope that you get a chance to see this. To those who have favourited or followed: again, thank you. I know you will see this.**

* * *

Awareness was something lost over time and regained over time. Thus, the awareness of both the world and the Force came to him slowly and gently, like maple syrup in mid-winter. First came warmth, perhaps a soft blanket, settling over him. Then it was the quiet murmur of voices, a hand settling on his shoulder and a whisper- "He's so tall." It all came back slowly and in the same, easy trickle of information.

He had no sense of time, only that it was passing at an unknown rate.

When he did awake some time later, it was in a quiet little hospital room, with a radio on the bedside table, the pleasant sound of a commentator's voice narrating a baseball game. 1941, he recognized; a Dodgers game. The tickets had been cheap, so he and Bucky had taken a day off to see the New York Dodgers play in all their glory.

A woman entered the room, and if that baseball game hadn't been a dead giveaway, she was.

The tie was too wide, not a style considered appropriate for woman and for all that Steve believed in equality, most of the world did not. Her watch (worn and at least fifty years old) was in the same style that many of the WACs had. Except it was fifty years old, likely belonging to the woman's grandmother.

What.

It transcended a question and went straight to a period.

Just. What.

"Good morning," the woman said with a false note in her voice. She swung over to the windows and brushed the curtains open. "It's just after ten o'clock. How are you feeling Captain Rogers?"

Steve stared back at her, tendrils of consciousness reaching out to her in the Force and skimming her uppermost thoughts. The woman was named Ava Gonzales, and was with a woman named Sahra Gonzales. They'd recently adopted a three year old boy whose parents had been killed in a car crash. His name was Spencer. The small family lived in a medium sized, nicely furnished apartment.

1\. Woman can be with other woman in a romantic sense. Conclusion: there is a lesser stigma against people who are not heterosexual, likely meaning that two men can be together. Question: does this mean that the world is less geared towards beings assigned the correct gender at birth?

2\. The state of their apartment suggested a better economy. Conclusion: the recession is over, the economy has been corrected and a great deal of time has passed. Question: how much time has passed so that the economy could have recovered to such a great extent?

3\. She is not a Hydra agent. Hydra rarely allowed agents to have regular lives alongside working in an underground facility. Conclusion: she will not kill me depending on the questions I ask. Question: was Hydra destroyed as hoped?

"Hello," Steve replied. "If I may ask, who are you and what year is it?"

"I'm sorry?" The woman responded, a panicked note ringing out from her in the Force.

Steve smiled lightly. "I was conscious for a little while," he said, conspiratorially. "No more than a week but nonetheless. Also, I was at the game that's playing on the radio, and your watch is at least fifty years old despite being of the same style that Agent Carter wore." The woman stared at him blankly. "It's alright," he assured her. "I imagine I've not been in ice for, what, a week or so? Please, may I speak with whomever is in charge?"

She nodded mutely and left the badly faked room. _Honestly_. The walls were made out of paper!

Minutes later she returned with a bald black man, who had an eyepatch covering one eye. Steve raised his eyebrows, and the man glared back.

"Captain Rogers," he greeted in a cold voice. "I'm Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.. That's Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division." He paused to glare at Steve for a minute longer. "You've been asleep, Cap. For seventy years."

Steve shrugged. "Stranger things have happened. I get the sense you're rounding the numbers, so what year is it?"

"Twenty-twelve," the woman replied in place of Nick Fury.

Well then. Sixty-seven years under the ice. Carbonite freezing came to his mind, a single thought in the spinning complexity that was Steve's mind. For a brief instant he wondered what they would call carbon freezing in this world.

He let out a long, absent hum, the sound buzzing in his throat for a minute before tapering off.

"Two thousand and eleven," Steve repeated softly. "Hydra? The war?"

The women nodded; Nick Fury answered. "In 1945 you captured Armin Zola. Three days after that, you killed Schmidt and crashed the plane into the north Atlantic. In the months following, your team and Agent Carter decimated Hydra ranks. They fell shortly before the end of the war in May, 1945."

"And the fellas?"

"James Falsworth died three years ago of prostate cancer. Jacques Dernier was killed in a car crash in the nineties. Peggy Carter went on and married one of the men you rescued in Rosano. They had two children. Now she lives in a care facility in Upstate New York. Gabe Jones and Timothy-"

"Dum Dum," Steve murmured.

"-Dugan both live in California. Gabe Jones married right after he got back from the war and spent most of his life teaching. Dugan never married and worked at the Veterans Affairs for years before retiring twenty years ago. Jim Morita lives in Oregon. Got married, had children and now lives on a farm in the countryside."

"It sounds like they had good lives," Steve commented softly.

The woman assured him; "They did."

It looked like Steve needed to divide his life into more portions; pre-Reincarnation (the Before), post-Reincarnation (the After), 2012 (the What). Because really? This was just getting ridiculous. He kept ending up in ships headed for their own destruction! And he kept not dying in the crashes, and for all that he did not complain because he most certainly wasn't upset that he was still alive, but he certainly was confused. He knew of very few people who had brushed death so many times and gotten up and walked away. By all means, it seemed impossible. And yet here was Steve, a ghost twice over who had once more gotten up and walked away from what had seemed to be his end.

Very well.

The woman and Nick Fury stared at him.

Steve stared back.

Neither side blinked, and yet both gazed on. The woman cracked first, blinking before Steve too blinked. Nick Fury fell last.

Finally- "What's happened the last years?"

"The second world war ended in May, 1945 with Japan's surrender following Hitler's suicide."

Steve's eyebrows shot up. In the Force, he had felt the man's presence a great many times and yet never had he come close to considering that the man would kill himself rather than be captured. Odd. But war did change a being.

"Our alliance with the USSR- the soviets –dissolved. Actually, we call it the Cold War now, because while it never came to open fighting tensions were very high. It lasted until '91." Fury took a deep breath. "After the war, the Allies created the United Nations, the UN. They've created laws for war, on what you can and cannot do, and generally supervise the entire world. They're the replacement for the League of Nations."

Well, that thing had been complete and utter crap so it really didn't surprise Steve too much.

"India gained independence from England, Indonesia independence from the Netherlands, and the Philippines independence from us. In '49, the People's Republic of China became a thing after the communists won the civil war." He let out a long huff. "The Korean War began in 1950."

Steve stared at him blankly. "They're a Japanese colony. Independence?"

"Granted at the end of World War II. Three years after that Korean was split into the North and South. Then in 1950, the North invaded their southern neighbour. The UN dispatched forces. It's come to be known as one of the more damaging wars of recent history. The US provided almost ninety percent of the forces in Korea. The war ended in '53."

There was a cold, heavy note in the broad man's voice and in the Force his emotions hung over him like a heavy, grey cloud preparing to spit rain upon the ground.

"And that's not the end, I take it?"

Nick Fury grimaced. "North Korea has isolated themselves from the rest of the world, does not allow visitors and has a great deal of nuclear weapons hanging around."

"I… I don't know what those are."

That got him a curious look.

"You were a high ranking military officer. Surely you knew about the Manhattan Project."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "On the _other_ hand I'm on the front lines. The chances of me being captured by one group or another is… _was_ much greater than would have been preferred, and for all that we're pretty good at rescue missions, it was too great of a risk."

Fury considered, then nodded. "Nuclear weapons plus attack equals big boom."

"Right. _Thanks_."

Fury sighed. "You know what, never mind. I'll find you a historian."

And yet this was the future, to Steve, and his time was the present, the time where he belonged and the time that he longed for, even only minutes into the future.

"Did they at least make flying cars?"

"One. Her name's Lola. Agent Coulson is very fond of her. She's the original car that Howard Stark made."

"What happened to Howard? He still kicking?"

"No." Steve raised his eyebrows. "About ten years back he was involved in a car accident or possibly assassination. He married Maria, and they had a kid. Tony. Who got kidnapped two years ago. And then created a suit capable of flight and has become a superhero known as Iron Man."

Steve blinked. "It would have been Howard's kid."

"You want to meet him?"

Now _that_ was something to be considered very thoroughly. If any given intuition Steve had ever had about Howard was right, the guy had ended up as quite a jerk. And if his personality had held through adulthood, he'd ended up as quite a horrible parent. _And_ the guy was a gay man born in the early twentieth century, which likely had ended up as cause for some deep seated self-hatred. Steve mentally compiled a list of everything that seemed relevant; likely depression, likely hero worship of Steve (which had really been quite annoying because _honestly_ how did people really think that Steve was interested in _anyone_ ), likely borderline abusive parent.

Pros and cons were weighed before Steve rested on an answer. "Sure. He sounds interesting." He paused; "Also, what's the date?"

"April eighteen."

Three days later Steve had been ordered into jeans (which were made of a fabric called denim and itched almost as much as Jedi robes, but in the end Steve had worn Jedi robes for almost half of his combined life, and thus he would survive) and sat in the backseat of a car on his way to Tony Stark's local residence.

He had been informed of the other half dozen residences the man held around the world. The favourite, Steve was informed, was located in Los Angeles, at the edge of a cliff looking out over the ocean. It sounded like a beautiful location, an akin place that Steve could not picture in the entirety of his galaxy.

Stark's place of residence was in the middle of Manhattan, a massive building that culminated in a large balcony (?), and several more floors that were only half the size of the rest of the building. On the side, in garish, immense letters, read "STARK".

Wow.

This kid seemed a great deal like Howard, on the outside.

Maybe.

It was difficult to see a person when, a) you had never met them, ever, b) when they were still growing as a person, and, c) when they were related to someone that you had known well. Tony Stark was all of them, a combined image of everything that made a person hardest to read in the Force, a person that hid behind a mask of confidence.

He was impossible to read.

 _Very_ impossible to read.

Tony Stark looked to be around thirty years old, unruly dark brown hair that poked up at odd angles, only scarcely tamed by some form of hair gel. The man was at the cusp of aging. There were wrinkles at the side of his mouth and an uncanny valley resting between his eyebrows. He wore sunglasses, dark and completely unnecessary in the early Manhattan light. He exuded confidence, walked with the stride of a man who had seen the horrors of the world and overcome them. The tip of his head, the hands shoved into the pockets of casual formal wear, every little detailed cried out, "I know I'm right," and Steve decided instantly that he liked the guy.

Steve tilted his head back at an easy angle, sticking a hand out for the other man to shake. Tony did. "Steve Rogers," he introduced in the casual fashion that had taken him years to become accustomed to. Accompanied by the introduction was a quiet smile.

"Tony Stark," the other man replied as they shook hands. His own smile was not genuine, Steve knew, but that was alright. Doubt was a part of life.

Tony was a man who went about life with a certain ease; it was something he exuded as Steve accompanied him to the higher levels of the state of the art building.

The butler, now _that_ was pretty darn amazing. A man that spoke out of the ceiling, sounded to be smiling half of the time and almost seemed sentient, that was seriously awesome. The AI asked to be referred to as Jarvis, something that Steve was more than happy to oblige to, seeing as he was talking to the most developed artificial intelligence that he had ever come upon. And perhaps most amusing of all was Jarvis' accent, which was prim and British but nothing at all like Peggy Carter's accent.

Rapid fire questions were easy to fire off; "How did you manage to create such an advanced intelligence system without making him slow? The more lines of code the greater amount of time it takes so how is it possible for him to be so quick?"

For the most part, Tony shrugged them off awkwardly with side comments about twentieth century tech. Frankly, Steve didn't blame him; the nineteen hundreds had been considered the age of technology when Steve lived there, and yet it had been nothing in comparison to the Before, where half the world was controlled by robots and where robots fought wars rather than sentient beings, and where they could move across the galaxy at the speed of light.

His life was a sci-fi novel by comparison.

Tony guided him into the upper levels, a floor that looked to be some sort of common area. Waiting for them there was a red haired, stern woman. She released an aura of warmth into the air, mixed with a cautious note that flickered and faded before reappearing, like she was trying to convince herself of something.

She shifted her feat slightly, a barely noticeable gesture of fear, before approaching and greeting Steve with a warm smile and handshake. "Pepper Potts," she said. "I'm the CEO of Tony's company. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"And my girlfriend," Tony butted in. Both ignored him.

"And you," Steve replied softly as he shook her hand. "That sounds like a big job."

"It's only big because Tony's trouble incarnate."

"You know, he's right here."

Pepper smiled apologetically at her partner. "Tony," she said in a firm yet kind voice. "You know the world's not about you."

"I'm the only name in clean energy. The world is about me."

The red-haired woman rolled her eyes as she sat back on the couch. Tony plopped down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Steve sat on the adjacent couch, awkward legs tucked up underneath him.

"So Steve," Pepper said with a grin. "Captain America. You prefer Steve?" Steve nodded. "How do you like the twenty-first century?"

A crazy grin slipped across his face. "Nick Fury introduced me to the internet."

There was a long groan from Tony. "No, we don't talk about the super spy in my house."

"When Tony told the world he was Iron Man," Pepper began, "Nick Fury showed up trying to recruit Tony to the Avengers Initiative, which is essentially a task force meant to protect the world from threats." She laughed easily. "Tony says no and then when there's an official evaluation of him it says they want Iron Man but not Tony and he throws a hissy fit."

Steve shrugged. "I get it. I'd be pretty mad if someone said that they only wanted a part of me; you can't simply take a part of a person, you have to take the whole person. Without the entire person it's impossible to achieve what you would like."

Tony pointed at him. "Yes! Yes, you I like. You _understand_ what I mean."

"Colonel Philipps wants- wanted -me to be a soldier, and I'm not a soldier. I just want to do what's best."

"And that's a noble cause," Pepper said with a smile. "You're a good person, Steve, I can see that." In one hand she held a glass of lemonade. "You could stay with us, if you'd like."

Tony blinked. "What? He can?"

"Tony."

Tony blinked again. "Yes! He can."

"That's quite alright," Steve said in the soft tone he preferred. "SHIELD is setting me up with an apartment in Brooklyn."

" _SHIELD_ ," Tony scoffed. "It's bugged. I will bet you my first born child that it is bugged."

Steve blinked. "Betting of children is illegal, last I checked."

Tony waved this off as though it were nothing. "I don't intend to have a child so that's not really a problem for me. Besides, Pepper would make me pay you instead of giving you my first child. Probably because that would be her first born too!"

The sweet smile that Pepper wore was deceptive, Steve knew. Behind it was a woman of untold cunning who ran one of the most powerful companies in the world, yet who was a good person in spite of the stigma surrounding the most powerful people of the world. She was a good actress, it showed in everything that she did, even the easy sips of her cold lemonade. "The Arc Reactor should be lighting up the tower with clean energy in about two weeks. It'll be quite the site, if you stay with us. You'd be welcome to come by even if you didn't stay with us, but we'd prefer that you did."

Privacy was something that Steve held desperately dear to him, something that he found to be one of the few things that he could possess without anyone telling him that he didn't need it, because who was going to tell an ex-asthmatic turned super soldier to spill every secret he had to the world? And if the apartment SHIELD was offering him was bugged, then why would he want to stay there?

He shifted his weight awkwardly, shuffling hands. "Alright. It's very kind of you to offer. I won't be a bother."

Pepper scoffed. "Nonsense, Steve, you won't be a bother. Not at all. You seem like a good kid."

Steve ducked his head shyly.

The Stark Tower was perhaps even more impressive on the inside than it was on the outside. There were some ten levels put towards personal living space, including a large gym, a floor devoted to a living room, kitchen and dining room, and several as their own, large apartments. For the most part, Tony lived on one of the floors that he had turned into a large lab, complete with every bit of technology relevant to whatever he was working on at that point in time. He had a floor devoted to a living space for both him and Pepper, but for the most part neither used it; Pepper, because of her almost constant stream of international meetings and Tony because the man seemed to be incapable of sleeping. Days with the pair passed easily, and often in a quiet and companionable silence.

For the greater part, Steve spent his days on the level that Tony had offered to him. It consisted of five rooms. A somewhat small bedroom that Steve inhabited now had a bookshelf against one wall, which was slowly filling the variety of books that slowly caught his eye as he wandered down the streets. For the most part, they were non-fiction science books, fantasy and sci-fi. He'd been shoved towards Isaac Asimov books, and Steve was enjoying them despite the odd manner that he had come into contact with them. His aged and battered copies of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy stood carefully to one side. A connected bathroom offered him the option between a shower and a bath.

The first of the other three rooms was likely designed to be an office or another living area. Steve, however, had chosen to arrange it into an artist's haven. The room itself was curved like the outside of the building, with a wall of openable windows looking out at the New York skyline. In the farthest corner from the door, Steve had set up a simple desk that allowed him to work in the day's light. A tea light stood in the corner of the desk allowing for him to add light where he felt the need. In a bookshelf next to the desk, and placed against the other corner, was a mixture of art supplies and books.

There was an easel on the other side of the room, and between the two areas a seat that allowed one to read with the city's light behind them.

It was Steve's favourite room.

The others were simple; a small dining area and a kitchen, and a small sitting area.

On the fourth day that Steve spent at Stark Tower, he got an inkling of worry in the Force. It was quickly written off as nothing but a paranoid conscience. Somebody would be late to work.

The same day, Nick Fury showed up in the Tower (no one knew how he got there), and proceeded to attempt to manipulate Steve into living at the SHIELD apartment they had found for him in Manhattan. Steve shot him down, saying, "It's my right as a person to choose where I want to live," and, "Mr. Stark has made me quite comfortable in his home. It's nice to be around someone who understands having a weight on your shoulders."

Fury made the argument that SHIELD was filled with people with weight on their shoulders.

Steve replied, "And yet in my eight days of research I have found nothing on any of them. Because they aren't public about what they do."

In the end Fury left, leaving Steve with the sense that he would return later.

That was alright. As Spiorad, Steve had been under the tutelage of Jedi Master Adi Gallia for a duration of nine years, half of his life in the Before, and almost all of the time that he could remember.

For all that Master Gallia was known as being a more reckless Jedi, she was more known for bringing the fight to her opponent. And due to her long term friendship with her fellow Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Spiorad/Steve had spent a great deal of time around the Negotiator, one of the many Jedi who made a name for themselves outside of the Order.

Steve smiled vaguely at the thought of his old friends. Master Kenobi's apprentice, Anakin, had been one of the many that Steve had not gotten along with so well, but for all that they disagreed on many things, they put aside their differences for the better of the people.

On the twenty-seventh, Steve helped Pepper prepare one of Tony's favourite dinners, in hopes of drawing the reclusive man from his lab. For all that Tony had garnered a reputation as a social butterfly, in his own home he was difficult to track down at best, impossible to find at worst. Steve quickly learned that most of the things the media said were not true, not in this new day and age. The man was complex, impossibly and irritably so. One wrong word and you might set off a minefield or anger, and one right word and you'd likely end up crushed with an immense bear hug.

True to their hopes, the scent of homemade spaghetti and meatballs and the promise of good conversation drew Tony from his lair.

Food was a very good bribe.

After two days straight in his labs, Tony had a face covered in machine oil and little bruises, likely from whatever happened when his little 'creations' went awry. His clothes were stained and even torn in places, and the Arc Reactor that shone through his T-shirts shone brightly. There were bags under his eyes, and in all likelihood the man hadn't slept in days.

Probably hadn't eaten, either, if the gusto he took to dig into his meal was indicative of anything.

Three bites in, Tony waved off a question about his most recent project.

"Hey Steve, remember that letter you wrote back with the Commandos?"

Steve nodded easily. "I was the only one that wasn't drunk. It would take a pretty hard blow to the head to make me forget something like that. Someone started singing; that was pretty great."

There was a hmm from Pepper's side of the table. "You caused quite a stir with that letter. After the war, the SSR took them all and they ended up in the Smithsonian. When they released them, it was like this giant uproar. Everyone was freaking out and it was all, 'Steve Rogers is a traitor; Captain America doesn't deserve our faith,' and all sorts of things. Some of the best codebreakers have gone at them and haven't had the clue. Actually, I think you're on one of those lists of least solvable codes."

Tony nodded enthusiastically. Through a mouthful of spaghetti, he grumbled out something that _might_ have been a, "Well _obviously_ ," or possibly a, "Mrr-ar-mff-gaop." He swallowed and then clarified: "Two years ago, the FBI decided to start giving their recruits a copy. One of their new ones cracked it last night."

"No they didn't," Steve replied. "Also, knowing that is probably illegal."

Tony nodded again. "Probably. But seriously man," he took another giant bite of spaghetti, "they actually cracked it. Some genius Cal-Tech grad who's too young to _be_ in that place."

"We won't ask you what you wrote," Pepper told Steve with a kind smile. "We won't even read it if they do succeed. But I can't say the same for the rest of the world."

"And I appreciate that," Steve replied. "But they won't crack it."

The next day Steve awoke to the nasty beeping of his new phone, which was less than a centimeter thick and fit easily in his hand. An odd creation but an awfully useful one. Not half as good as the communicative devices of the Before. But very good nonetheless. More useful, likely, than the little hologram transmitters.

He snarled at the thing as he rolled onto his right side, picking it up and glaring at the notification.

Actually, he perked up, that looked rather interesting.

Unlocking the thing was awfully easy, seeing as it had his thumb programmed into it

The headline was as such: **CODED WAR LETTERS OF CAPTAIN AMERICA CRACKED.**

Well then.

Steve opened the tab. Sure enough, there was the letter he had written in aurebesh, his inelegant letters decorating the page in tidy lines, the punctuation perfected to each comma. He scrolled down, and there was his letter typed into a computer in the English alphabet. He gazed at it curiously, followed the words with ease.

 _This letter is addressed to Adi Gallia, master on the jedi council:_

 _If you are not master Gallia, I request that you turn this letter over to the forth mentioned master at the earliest possible convenience._

 _It has been some twenty years since I was last in the infinity. It has been some twenty years since I last saw my dear friends, and some twenty years since I last knew my place in the world. In many ways, being a Jedi is one of the simplest ways of life, focused on helping those around us. For all that we choose our courses and paths in the force-_

Steve sighed at the lack of capitalization in this translated version.

- _we do not have to make the hefty decisions that others do. For example, I have always known that I will become a Jedi, whereas the people that we protect spend hours slaving over their decisions of what they will do in life. Some choose to become senators, or mechanics, while others yet choose to be pilots, or musicians. It is to the order, and to you, that I am grateful for allowing me to know my path._

 _Years before this one, you asked me why I am always so formal. Yet I do not know the answer, only that it seems to be polite. I prefer polite over other things._

 _I miss both you and the order, my friends and the children that I grew up alongside. Oh jeez, I bet they are middle aged by now, living out their lives in the relative peace that we provide. Mier used to talk about wanting a padawan; she said that choosing an Initiate was the greatest gift that she could give to the order, because for all that she had faith that she would become an excellent Jedi, she felt that the way she could best contribute was by training the next generation. She also said that being chosen was the greatest gift she had ever received._

 _Perhaps she went through with that, snatched up a child with talent and a heart the size of tuhlata._

The mention of the first Coruscanti moon made Steve's heart ache with longing for the planet, and for his friends.

 _I would like to think that she did. You would know, of course. You always kept such a gaze on my friends whenever we were at the temple. It scared Edelsten to the extent that he insisted only to see me in the room of a thousand fountains. You never wanted that, I know, and I told Edelsten as such and he just continued to hide away._

 _Here, the time slips away like the waters of naboo over the crystal falls, a roaring gush that yet conveys peace from afar._

 _There are a great many things I ask for of the force. Forgiveness, perhaps, for the things that I have done. To see you and my friends even one last time._

 _Dear force I miss you._

 _It's strange. We preach about attachments and their danger and yet when we are given the chance we latch onto those around us in a vice grip. Even after twenty years, I can't imagine living without you and often times it is hard for me to believe that I do._

 _I do live in a world without you._

 _In all honesty, I do not even know where I am._

 _Perhaps the outermost reaches of our galaxy, deep in the unknown regions. I doubt there is any world in the galaxy filled with such primitive yet intelligent life, it seems impossible. Of course, it is beyond possible as all things are._

 _If I am in our galaxy then I endeavour to one day return home._

 _Wherever I am, I nonetheless wish that I could be at your side._

 _In all likelihood this is an empty letter, written to a being that will never read it, and in all likelihood I will never see you, Mier or Edelsten again._

 _Each day I remind myself; there is no passion, there is serenity._

 _Signed on this unknown date on this unknown planet known to it's inhabitants as Earth,  
Spiorad Tyst, padawan of the jedi order._

He let out a long, huffing sigh, and continued down the article, into what had been written about what he had written.

 _…speculation is running amok about what this letter might mean about our American hero. Conspiracy theorists have suggested everything from insanity to an elaborate hoax to keep us guessing about who Steve Rogers really was._

 _The simplest answer, of course, is that Captain America was simply riddled with one form of insanity or another. Some have suggested multiple personality disorder, whereas others insist that Rogers was just trying to fool us._

 _Either way, this letter leaves us with some serious questions about the Star Spangled Man with a Plan._

 _Though some of the unknown words are clearly names, such as Adi Gallia or Mier, others are unrecognizable and seem just south of gibberish. Padawan, naboo, tuhlata._

 _The person who solved the code, remaining unnamed for their own safety, has stated that they do not know what such words mean but that they will endeavour to find the answers._

 _Also brought up in our interview with the solver was a group seeming to be called the jedi order. The solver mentioned that Jedi is a Hebrew girl's name meaning beloved of God. Likewise, Padawan is a girl's name of unknown meaning and origin._

 _Based on context alone, we can see that this alleged jedi order is a place of hierarchy, mention a jedi council, masters and initiates._

 _In our society, the word master has two meanings, one sinister and the other light. The first implies lording over something, whereas the second, the verb form, implies having perfected something. If context gives us any clues, then it is likely that the master mentioned in Rogers' letter is a combination of those meanings. Adi Gallia is mentioned as being a master on the council (implying that she is high of rank), and is once referred to as master Gallia, the way a school child might refer to a favoured teacher._

 _Combined this information implies that Gallia is an expert at something, and high ranking._

 _On other contextual clues, we can see that Gallia is ranked above Rogers._

 _We likely will never know what Rogers meant in this letter, or anything about the people that he mentioned. What we do know is that Rogers may not have been the person we thought him to be._

Steve let out a long sigh and placed his phone back on the bedside table. Long fingers drew up his blankets (three of them, all heavy and soft and unfathomably warm) so that they covered his shoulders. He shut his eyes and made every attempt to will himself back to sleep. He failed.

Come morning, as promised, neither Pepper nor Tony mentioned the letter, and Steve pushed it to the depths of his mind.

The day went on as normal.

So did the next day.

The next day, May the first, was interesting. It consisted, almost in its entirety, of the blowout of SHIELD releasing the news that Captain America (who had written a really weird letter) was alive. Tony had introduced Steve to another website the previous day, something called twitter. _That_ was not an experience that Steve ever wanted to experience again.

Scrolling through the (hashtag? Why was it called a hashtag when _clearly_ it was a numerical symbol meaning 'number'), Steve found a great many interesting things.

For example:

 **Margo the mango** margothemango

you know, of all that weird things that have happened this has got to be the weirdest. crazy cap, living cap, next thing you know therell be aliens.

What did _margo the mango_ even mean?! Clearly, this person was _not_ a mango so _apparently_ Steve was taking things to literally.

Steve read the twitt a few times and coughed softly at the last little bit. He was pretty sure that he _was_ an alien. Which was _also_ a derogatory term, insisting that someone's species defined them as more than who they were, where they lived and what they loved.

 **The Associated Press** AP

S.H.I.E.L.D. reveals Captain America is alive  /4Fwy935bm/ #captainamerica

Okay there was nothing to protest there but Steve glimpsed the article and it was also perfectly normal. He quickly decided he liked the AP, as they seemed to be reporting facts rather than speculation. Always a good trait for a newspaper to have.

There were people, of course, calling for Steve's arrest and for Steve to do a press conference and a million different things.

Then he started trending. And proceeded to reach the top of the list of ten trends. He and his letter both.

Force darn it this was why he wrote things in a nonexistent language?!

Because he didn't want the annoying people poking around his personal letters that he wrote to his friends, to beings that these people did not believe existed.

Honestly, why else would be write aurebesh?

It was fantastically different from any other language that Steve had found on Earth. They were all based around the same twenty-six letters. Aurebesh, however, had thirty-four. It was something that made the language difficult to change, or translate. Oreo is spelled with four letters in English, and only three in aurebesh. Osk-resh-onith. Oh-arr-eo.

 **Federal Bureau of Investigation** FBI

We at the FBI would like to commend Captain Rogers on creating such an elegant code. Few have stumped so many for so long.

Well. At least the smart people who broke his code respected him. That was rather nice.

It seemed that in this new era respect was thrown out the window, and what was left behind was nothing more than ownership, these people of this new era insisting that Steve owed them something when, in the end, it was they who, if anything, owed Steve. They were lucky Steve didn't collect debts. As such was not the Jedi way. The Jedi way was to respect all beings, in spite of their defects, and to protect all those who could not protect themselves.

Pepper came to see him the day after it was revealed that Steve wasn't dead. They sat side by side on the couch, each with a glass of Coca-Cola.

"SHIELD has asked me to ask you about doing an interview," Pepper said at some point, and Steve spat out a sip of his drink and proceeded to cough ferociously for a few moments before he regained his composure.

For a long minute he considered.

"I'm not actually going to ask you," came from Pepper between sips. "But I do need an answer, and whatever you say is perfect. You don't need to tell the world anything, and they can't make you."

He considered further.

"Can I choose the person?"

A nod.

"And when it happens?"

Another.

"I'm… not _entirely_ opposed to the idea."

Pepper grinned at him, a slow smile that crept across her face with a certain ease. "You sure, Steve? You really don't have to."

He shrugged. "If I don't find any nice people I'll just not do an interview."

As it turned out, there were plenty of nice people that Steve would be willing to let interview him. A college student studying journalism at Georgetown. A history professor that focused on the lasting impacts of varying wars on society. A photographer that worked for the Daily Bugle (which, for all that it was a _very_ bad paper, seemed to hire a very kind, decent photographer). A journalist with the New York Times, which was a very reputable newspaper company (as it had been in Steve's day) in great difference to the Bugle. A great deal many more decent people as well.

Stark had insisted on running background checks on the lot of them. The college student was on vacation with their family, fully prepared for a weekend of fun in a small town in Pennsylvania. The photographer, unlike the student, was not on vacation and rather spending most of their time working at a local pizzeria (Steve decided then and there that he would make the offer to the photographer first). The history professor remained at Columbia over the summer break and had chosen _not_ to go on vacation for the holiday, and so was a viable option. Finally, the journalist ended up having a very nasty twitt on their personal account, and thus Steve wrote them off of the list.

Pepper surveyed the list too, and promptly told Steve to offer an interview to the photographer, whose name was Peter Parker. Peter Parker was a seventeen year old from Queens. At the age of four, he'd been orphaned when his parents (a pair of genius scientists working on developing a cure for cancer with spider DNA) were killed in a plane crash. Since then, he was raised by his aunt and uncle, a kind and aging couple. At fifteen, his uncle had been killed in a mugging. After graduation, at the age of sixteen and in spite of being offered scholarships, Peter was forced to take up three separate jobs to help his aging aunt in retirement.

He had no college education to speak of despite the 4.0 GPA he had received upon graduating high school one year early.

Emails were easy to figure out; they were remarkably similar to writing a letter, and there was a similar equivalent in the Before.

A quick email detailed to Peter Parker what Steve was being expected to do, and how Steve hoped that Peter could help.

The letter he received back read as such:

 _Dear Mr. Rogers,_

 _I am honoured by your offer but admit myself to be somewhat confused. Surely there is someone better than me who will be able to paint you in a better light._

Steve wrote back:

 _I am sure there is someone that could be considered better but that is not what I have taken into consideration. I have done my reading; you're a smart, talented person who has yet to have your lucky break. I would like to offer you this opportunity._

Peter wrote back:

I _am not the right person for this job._

Steve said:

 _It is not whether or not you believe in yourself, it's whether or not you can do it. I don't want to do an interview with anyone else._

Peter said, in a hesitant response that glowed with nerves:

 _I can clear space for you depending on when/where is best for you. Would it be alright if I brought my camera?_

The final in their string of conversation was from Steve. _Would you be able to get to Stark Tower anytime tomorrow? A camera is fine. I look forward to seeing how the photography world has changed in the past seventy years._

If there was a single sense of Peter Parker that Steve got when he arrived at Stark Tower, it was that he was a good kid with a secret, someone who needed a break they desperately deserved. Dirty blond hair was swept to the right of Peter's head in a simple look. He was as pale as Steve, but with freckles to show for it. He had warm brown eyes that held a certain spark, and an athletic body that suggested Peter was someone who ensured they stayed in shape.

Slight, and a little skittish, Peter pushed his glasses up his nose. They were a thick-rimmed pair, a dark shade of green that shone softly in the light in some places, and was matte in others.

Steve stuck out a hand. "Steve Rogers; it's a pleasure, Mr. Parker."

Peter let out a long squeak. With the slightest tremor in his words, he spoke: "P-Peter Parker."

It was as clear to see as the sun in the day's sky. He was terrified. _Very_ terrified. That was something that would have to be rectified, and while Steve was generally against emotional manipulation some situations did call for a calming projection. Some species, like Falleens, were capable of changing their pheromone levels in order to manipulate those in the surrounding area, but as a mere Arhan, Steve had no such capabilities and was forced to rely on the Force.

Carefully extending his Force presence, Steve sought for Peter in the Force, carefully nudging at his mind before allowing the soothing emotions to seep from one to the other.

"Tea? Coffee?" Steve asked. "Ms. Potts has introduced me to chai, it's quite good."

In the end, the article turned out something like Steve thought it would. With Peter's permission, he had reached out the New York Times with the offer of what they called an exclusive, where they were given a story that only they would know until after the fact, with the condition that it would be an article written by one Peter Parker. He wrote it the same evening that he met Steve.

 _In the past week, something I never even considered to be possible happened._

 _Everyone in America knows the story, be they a five year old child just beginning their first year of school, a military veteran, or a recently immigrated family. Steve Rogers, known to most as Captain America, plummeted from the sky in the plane filled with the explosives meant to destroy the entirety of the East Coast, from New England up to Nova Scotia, and as far inland as Ohio._

 _Everyone knows that Captain America is dead. Or knew, perhaps._

 _Very recently, the Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.) released a statement in regards to the deceased American hero. He said, "Due to circumstances, I am unable to give you the specifics of the retrieval of Steve Rogers, but I can tell you that he is off to an excellent start in our modern era."_

 _I can assure you that the good captain is adjusting well to the technological age that we like to believe has been around for all time._

 _Captain Rogers ("Please, call me Steve.") and I spoke over steaming cups of chai tea._

 _I asked him what he thought of the recent political movements, such as equal rights and gay marriage._

 _To this, he replied, "You know, I always thought that the world would continue to progress at a growing rate technologically, but I never thought that we would come along this far politically in a short time." Here he paused. "I've been doing some reading recently. When I was growing up, the police used to raid the gay bars. They'd arrest every last person in the place and then release 'em all the next day. It's so different now, it's wonderful."_

 _He considers this for a minute. "Up in Canada that's been legal for years! If anything, the US is_ behind _in many political matters."_

The article spoke about the things they had discussed, from said political movements to the state of pizza in New York. Peter asked about the war in passing, and made sure to question about the Howling Commandos (every last one of them, unlike every journalist Steve had ever talked to and he _knew_ there was a reason he chose this kid).

At the end of it all, Peter asked, "Why me?" and Steve replied with:

"Well who else was going to ask me about politics and the guys? I did my research. Everyone else was going to ask me about things like music, celebrities and other irrelevant topics. I don't want my impact, here, to be as trivial as that."

(which wasn't to say that celebrities were unimportant or any such thing as, of course, all beings were of the utmost importance in Steve's eyes. It was to say that a celebrity's affair with so-and-so was not as important as decisions that impacted millions.)

A foreboding note hung heavy in the Force as Peter left Stark Tower.

* * *

 **Now I need to go watch Avengers again I remember nothing.**


	3. In Instincts We Trust

**Sorry for the wait. Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

In the end, it wasn't a late office worker that caused the disturbances to radiate through the Force with the power of a freight train.

No, because nothing could ever be normal on this chaotic, messed up, horribly infuriating planet.

The man who entered the room was not Nick Fury- rather he was a serious, aging man dressed in a dark suit. His head was bare in parts, the beginning of his balding. He greeted them.

"Mr. Stark, Ms. Potts, Mr. Rogers," the man greeted in a heavy voice that matched his serious demeanor.

"Phil," Pepper greeted him, voice warm and happy to see him. "Please, come in."

Tony scoffed. "Phil? Uh, his first name is Agent."

"We were just celebrating," Pepper continued as though she hadn't heard Tony's interruption.

Tony was dressed in the under armor he wore beneath the Iron Man suit, the dark shades of blue and grey making him obvious in the tan-decorated room. "Which," the man growled, "is why he can't stay."

Agent Phil tilted his head and gazed at the genius. "We need you to look this over." He held out a grey file. "As soon as possible."

From where he sat on one couch, nursing a glass of carbonated water, Steve perked up. Glass abandoned, he popped up and joined the conversation, taking the file from Agent Phil. He flicked it open, and was immediately greeted with a sadistic, smiling face framed by jet black hair. Something in his smile, or even something in the Force, revealed to Steve a single knowledge: this being was not human. He frowned down at the cruel face in the image, before blue eyes flickered up to look at the title.

Loki Odinson.

The name was familiar only in passing; stories told of the trickster god of Norse legend trickled into his mind, the outcast of Asgard who could shift shape at will. From the depths of the Before came a story entirely different- a distant and legendary kingdom led by a being named Odin, who fought with ease to protect his people whenever given the chance. Word was that the species, the Asgardians as it seemed, had lifespans far greater than that of any known species, almost ten times that of Master Yoda's. Despite their isolation from the remainder of the galaxy, they had advanced technology and intricate social customs.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Steve addressed Agent Phil and ignored the tiny squeak he received in response. The man's aura changed every time he looked at Steve, and the Arhan got the distinct impression the man was quite a fan of his 'work' as Captain America. "But this Loki is the Norse trickster god, no?"

Agent Phil nodded. "Phil Coulson," he said with an extended hand. Steve took it and shook it before retreating.

Tony glowered at the suited man. "Official consulting hours are between eight and five on weekdays."

"This isn't a consultation."

Pepper gazed at Agent Coulson with a gleam of curiosity in her eyes. "Is this about the Avengers? Which," she added quickly, "I know nothing about."

"The Avengers Initiative was scrapped," Tony snapped at the agent, who ignored the genius. It was obvious he dealt with Tony quite a bit. " _And_ I didn't even qualify."

"I didn't know that either," Pepper added.

"Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self obsessed and don't play well with others."

Steve snorted. "That's ridiculous. Volatile, yes, but you're certainly not self obsessed, and you don't play well with others because they are unwilling to see past what the media says."

"This isn't about personality profiles anymore." A hint of desperation leaked into his voice.

There was a long huffing sigh from Tony. "Will you please cut the crap? If you're looking for our help we need to know what's going on, and until you tell us, we have no way to find out." Well that was a lie. No _moral_ way to find out.

"An extraterrestrial being by the name of Loki has come to Earth to gain access to the Tesseract. He is in possession of the Tesseract and aims to use it to become the overlord of Earth."

Steve tilted his head back, considering the man before him. "Who do you expect us to work with?"

"You'll have to wait and see."

In the end Tony stayed behind, spending his evening with Pepper. It was a well-founded vacation for the aging hero, a guarantee of some easy time off before world saving. Steve went with Coulson, meeting with a half dozen SHIELD agents dressed in their dark, militaristic garb. Two pilots, who wore helmets and comm sets, whereas the other four wore tactical gear. For some odd reason Steve felt strangely out of place amongst the highly trained agents, despite a lifetime of serving beneath the Jedi Code in traditional Jedi garb. It could have had something to do with their high-tech weapons, or the fact that Steve hadn't grown up training with these people but either way the sense of unease remained.

True to his word, Coulson revealed details about the other combatants.

"Doctor Banner attempted to recreate Erskine's serum?" Steve questioned, eyes flickering over the screen before him. The man, Dr. Robert B. Banner, didn't appear such a man in the videos; some ten feet tall and green in colouration, the roaring being in the videos was nothing like the mousy, aging man in the photos.

"A lot of people were," Coulson replied. "You were the world's first superhero. Banner thought gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."

Steve let out a long huffing sigh. "Didn't really go his way, did it.

"Not so much. Word is, when he's not a green rage monster, the guy's like a Stephen Hawking." Steve hummed his easy agreement as Coulson spoke. "I… I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping."

In response, Steve ducked his head shyly, closing the laptop and following Coulson from the small jet-plane-helicopter-shuttle that they had been aboard.

"I mean, I was present while you were unconscious from the ice. You know, it's really a huge honour to have you onboard."

"I can only hope I'm the right man for the job," Steve replied.

A moment later they were met by a woman with blazing red hair and hazel eyes. "Agent Romanoff," Coulson introduced, "Captain Rogers."

Steve gave the woman a nod. "A pleasure."

"Charmed," was the sarcastic drawl he received in response and Steve felt his lips quirking upwards. She was on the small side, not so short as to be considered abnormal but short enough that Steve was an easy foot taller than her. In his past body, he would have had less than three inches on her. Blazing hair was cut short around pale face. She was dressed in black tactical gear, skin tight and undoubtedly armored, with a zipper up the front for ease of use. At her hip she had a pair of sleep, dark guns and in some mockery of jewelry, were bullets at her wrist. On her sleeve was the SHILED logo. She turned to Coulson; "You're needed on the bridge. Face time."

In the Force, her presence hung heavy with a sour note of death. Swirling beneath that were other emotions; concern, fear, sorrow all wrapped in a tiny bundle at the centre of her presence.

Coulson nodded. "See you there."

Steve followed Agent Romanoff.

"There was quite the buzz here, finding you in the ice." Her voice was smooth and clear, with only the slightest hint of an accent he could not identify. "I thought Coulson was going to swoon. Has he asked you to sign his trading cards yet?" Her drawl was easy and amused, as dry as the arid sands of the Ryloth deserts.

"Trading cards?"

Romanoff grinned at him. "They're vintage."

As they walk they pass a man with ruffled and greying hair, features eerily similar to that of the immense green man that, not so long ago, Steve had been observing through a computer screen.

"Dr. Banner" Steve said as they passed him.

The man looked over vaguely then grinned, the smile spreading across his face like ripples across a pond, or emotions gleaming through the Force. And gleam in the Force this man did, his warm emotions shining brightly like the Corellian sun.

"Oh, yeah," he greeted. "Hi. They told me you were coming." His voice was nonchalant and easy going, happy despite the grim situation they were supposed to counter.

"Word is you can find the cube."

"That the only word on me?"

Steve grinned back, wild and unrestrained. "Only word I care about."

The other man nodded slowly, his smile easy and relaxed. "Must be strange for you, all this."

"Oh believe me, this is entirely too familiar."

Romanoff interrupted her conversation from where she stood at the sidelines. "Gentlemen, you may want to step inside in a minute. It's about to get hard to breathe." A brisk breeze sent her crimson hair gently fluttering.

"Is this a submarine?"

Banner laughed. "Really? They want _me_ in a submerged, pressurized, metal container?"

There was a firm shift on the ground beneath their feet, a jolt that travelled through their jobs and they all tensed simultaneously as the surface beneath them shook. They moved to the edge of the helicarrier, and it was entirely too obvious as to why it was called a helicarrier. From the water, an immense, whirling fan rose, blades moving at an ever-faster speed. Then the helicarrier began to rise, it's dark shape rising into the heavens as the water beneath swirled under the pressure being forced down upon it.

"Oh, no. This is much worse."

Together, the pair found their way to the massive ship's bridge, where dozens of dark-clothed officers manned varying computers, with grand consoles spreading out.

Nick Fury greeted them, six feet of sleek muscle and dark skin, coated in black leather. "Gentlemen," and if the voice of Agent Romanoff, Natasha, was a sarcastic and biting drawl then the voice of Nick Fury was as dry as the deserts of Jakku, and as sarcastic as Anakin Skywalker on a bad day. "Dr. Banner, thank you for coming."

"Thanks for asking nicely. So, uh, how long am I staying?"

"Once we get our hands on the tesseract, you are free to go."

"Where are you with that?"

Agent Coulson spoke up. "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, lap tops. If it's connected to the internet, it's eyes and ears for us."

There was a harsh laugh. "That still won't find them in time." Romanoff's aura pulsed with worry in the Force, a heavy note hanging over her presence like an angry cloud. Unaware, she was broadcasting, making every little emotional twitch scream to Steve.

Bruce scoffed at them. "You have to narrow down the field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"How many are there?" Fury replied. His voice was sarcastic and drab as always, but underneath was a note of worry.

Rapid as a fire spreading through a dry forest, Bruce replied. Steve blinked at him, catching a few words: every lab, calibrate, gamma rays, algorithm. At the last sentence, he slowed. "You have somewhere for me to work?"

Romanoff sent a wicked grin his way. "You're going to love it, Doc. We've got all the toys."

"I doubt that."

Together, they made their way off. Steve gazed after them, but a hint longing.

Coulson nudged him, and Steve snapped from his stupor to gaze at the other man. "Could you-" he trailed off and frowned, shifting his weight between his feet. "Uh, maybe could you?" Another, longer pause, before everything rushed out in a single blur. "Could you sign my Captain America trading cards? I mean if it's not too much troubled or anything."

"No," Steve replied, voice gentle and quiet, gazing at the computer systems before him. "No, it's alright. In fact, I would be happy to." He shot Coulson a little grin.

"They're vintage," Coulson said with a small smile and a head duck. "It took me a couple of years to collect them all. Near mint, slight foxing around the edges, but…" The man trailed off, and when his presence changed to indicate a desire to speak, one of the agents at the computers did.

"We've got a hit, sixty-seven percent match."

Steve nodded, motions slow and precise. "That's close enough for a match?"

"Seventy-nine percent when weight and height are taken into account. It's close enough that we have to check it out."

From Coulson's other side, Fury nodded. "You're up Cap.

The suit was stupid. Unfailingly, ridiculously stupid. A bright, cerulean blue made up the majority of the suit, with a silver star over his heart that screamed ' **TARGET!** ' in capitalised, emboldened letters. Across the midriff of the suit was alternating stripes, white and red making yet another easy target. The whole thing was enforced but bulky, with thick gloves and boots that were illogical for the situation he was entering. The helmet, not designed for the elongated features the Arhan possessed, was too small and the mere idea of wearing it made him wince as the beginning of a headache pounded in the back of his skull.

It had been left on the bed of his temporary quarters, spread out lovingly and a sneaking suspicion told Steve that it had been Coulson who left it there. In a closet was dark tactical gear, all in black and all in the appropriate sizes for Steve, which was not the easiest thing to do, seeing as Steve was over six and a half feet of sinewy muscle over a thin, almost frail looking frame.

He snatched out the reinforced pants, strong yet easy to move in and so light they would not slow him down in the slightest, and slipped them on. A thin, black shirt followed that and last was a tactical jacket with pockets of varying shapes and sizes, designed for everything one could need. As an afterthought, he grabbed a tactical belt that held further more pockets and wrapped it around his waist.

A gun, smaller and far slighter than those that he was used to finding in the After, rested atop the wardrobe and he slipped it carefully into the holster.

Master Kenobi had said that blasters were imprecise and vulgar weapons, something kept over from a more barbaric time. Of course, the difference between blasters and guns was very stark; blasters had to be charged with great frequency, and converted energy to very thin lasers of the same sort that lightsabers used. Guns, on the other hand, were a product of a bygone era and for all that they were more precise, less likely to be deflected back at the shooter, and much smaller, they had been outweighed in favour of the weapon more likely to pierce armour.

The holster snapped shut, and Steve made for the door, shield slung over his shoulders.

As it turned out, Loki Odionson was a being with a very strange sense of style.

He was on the tall side by a small margin, but shorter than Steve by an easy foot, no taller than five feet, ten inches. Beneath several layers of clothing (thick layers, each more extravagant than the last), he looked to be on the skinnier side but undoubtedly had some muscle, given the amount of metal that he was holding up. For the most part, he was dressed in brilliant emerald greens, blacks as dark as the night sky and a single shade of gold that shimmered in the pale light from the street lamps. On his head was a rather impressive helm, with two immense metal horse curving backwards and, while the dress was rather stylish on other planets, all it did on Earth was make him look like a complete and utter buffoon.

Before him knelt the unfortunate pedestrians of the city, one older man standing.

It was in sharp contrast to the fields of kneeling people surrounding him that he stood, looking wholly unimposing in the face of the alien prince who stood before him. His hair, no doubt long since gone white, stood out against the darkness of his surroundings.

Loki's voice boomed out into the darkness, "Look at your elder, people. Let him be an example." He raised the sceptre, the end beginning to glow blue as Steve dove to intercept the blast.

The energy made contact with the shield, and rather than dissipating as it would with a lightsabre, the light reflected back until it threw Loki backwards, the off-worlder flying back to make contact with the stairs behind him. "You know," Steve said conversationally, "the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing over everyone else, we ended up disagreeing." His lips curved into an amused smile. "Lets just say it didn't end so well for him."

From the stairs, Loki rose, movements as fluid as water from a tap. "The soldier," his voice was soft and cool. "A man out of time."

Steve regarded him calmly. "I'm not the one who's out of time." Above him the presence of a dozen lives made itself known as the quinjet materialised.

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down."

The magnified voice came from the quinjet, a machine gun dropping from the craft as she spoke. Loki regarded the craft for a tenth of a moment before raising his staff, blue energy arcs towards it. The craft dodged to the left, only scarce avoiding the blast before Steve send his shield ricocheting towards Loki. The off-worlder batted it away as though it were a leaf in the wind.

As it always did, the shield returned to Steve. He landed a single punch only for Loki's piercing green gaze to snap towards him, eyes narrowing as the German people surrounding them cried out in fear, fleeing the scene in a thousand different directions.

Loki landed a blow- then two -on Steve's shield before sending Steve flying backwards, tumbling over the steps before skidding to a halt on his feet, glancing up at the other.

His shield was batted away once more.

The off-worlder's sole weapon was his staff and it showed in his fighting. A few harsh blows from it sent Steve flying once more, landing hard on his hands, scrambling to defend himself as a cold knock betrayed the staff against his helm.

"Kneel," Loki's voice was cold like a winter's day and harsh like a desert sun.

"Not today."

Steve went flying once more.

Distantly, he could feel Natasha's presence in the Force, a spot glowing in his inner eye that wafted confusion towards him. As the quinjet began blasting some music- recent, what Steve would never listen to -Natasha's signature changed to annoyed but relieved. Stark.

As he always did, Tony arrived in his full-suited glory, a trail of golden sparks behind him and a repulsor blast sending Loki flying. He landed crouched on one knee, one arm out behind him and head bowed. Then he stood, the mechanical whir of the suit as his weapons revealed themselves almost a comfort to Steve's ears.

The actions were typical Tony-fashion, flashy and bright but with the underlying desire to protect the people around them.

"Make your move, Reindeer Games."

Loki raised his hands in surrender, armour shimmering from existence.

"Good move," Tony said before turning to look at Steve. "You needed some help?"

Steve rolled his eyes back at his friend. "You know it, I know it, so don't gloat about it."

The lightning began over the Spanish countryside, thunder coming from nowhere that left them all a little on edge. Natasha whispered with her boss over the com systems, the very definite note of annoyance and nerves wafting from her like bad perfume. She glanced back for half a second, Loki still seated calmly in his chains.

"I don't like it," Steve hissed to Tony. "That was too easy. With the power he has at his back we should be dead by now."

Tony sighed. "Steve, kid, you're a good person but you lack experience."

"Experience?! You've been doing this for two years! I've been Captain America," his tone turned cynical and overly pronounced, a mockery of his own title, "since 1942!"

"As I was saying," he said rather pointedly. "You lack experience. I'm forty years old and I've dealt with a lot of horrible people in that time. I don't think _he's_ going to give up any secrets easily, but he's also not going to put up much of a fight." As Steve shot him a you-can't-be-serious look, Tony rolled his eyes. "Believe me, Steve. Nothing is going to happen."

Lightning rocked the quinjet, throwing Steve against the metal wall. He snarled with annoyance, steadying himself against the wall as he made his way to the front.

Under her breath, Natasha grumbled, "Where is this coming from?"

He sat carefully into the co-pilot's seat, glancing back to see Loki gazing intently out the front window. "What's the matter?" He asked, genuine concern in his tone. "Not a fan of storms?"

"I'm not overly fond of what follows," Loki replied, each word carefully enunciated so as not to betray any emotion. It didn't work. In the Force he radiated a certain tenseness that was peculiar in every way and, despite that, very real and very strong. For all he had garnered a bloodthirsty, cruel reputation, there was something in the off-worlder that was entirely childlike.

"Your brother?" Steve asked, just as a bolt of lightning seemed to strike the quinjet from nowhere, leaving them all stumbling as the ramp in back opened. Within a half second Tony's helm once more covered his head.

In stormed a man mere inches shorter than Steve with shoulders as broad as a tree trunk with a mighty hammer in hand. He wore traditional armour, a red cape fluttering behind him as shoulder-length blond hair rippled in the wind. Tony raised a repulsor at him only to be sent backwards with a hammer to the chest.

The recently entered man ignored Tony in favour of ripping Loki from his bindings, face cold with anger and distaste. He hauled Loki by the throat from the quinjet, leaping from the ramp only mere seconds after he had entered. Lightning flashed after him.

Tony stood. "And now there's that guy," he murmured.

"Another Asgardian?" Natasha called back, voice near ripped away from her by the thundering storm.

"Think he's a friendly?" Steve questioned.

It was Tony who replied, already making his way to the ramp to follow. "Doesn't matter. If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost." He leapt from the plane.

Steve rolled his eyes, following after him even as Natasha called back, "I'd sit this one out, Captain. These guys come from legends, they're basically gods."

He turned back to grin at her, not-quite-human features twisting into a grin strange for humans but oh so normal for him. "I don't believe in gods." With all the gusto he could muster, Steve leapt from the plane.

It was to a rather interesting sight that Steve landed, dropping to a crouch on the branches of a fallen tree. Bellow him were Tony and the other Asgardian, duking it out. Tony, having been sent flying off with a single, mighty thwop from the Asgardian's hammer, righted himself in the hair before propelling a fist into the Asgardian. A single flick of Steve's wrist sent the shield ricocheting from the Asgardian to Tony, and with his voice raised over the howling wind, Steve spoke.

"Hey! That's enough." He dropped from the tree, knees bending to absorb the impact. He looked up to gaze at the Asgardian "Now I don't know what you plan on doing here, but believe me when I say there is another way."

"I have come to put an end to Loki's schemes!" The ancient being's voice boomed like a high-tech musical system.

As Steve stood, the Asgardian observed him. Took in his long limbs and frail figure, regarded his enlengthened features and long, thin nose. For a full minute the Asgardian simply stared at Steve and observed. As Steve tilted his head backwards, he reached out a single tendril of the Force to snake around the Asgardian's consciousness, allowing Steve to catch his uppermost thoughts, ones that consisted mostly of, "He is not of Midgard." Meeting eyes with the Asgardian, whose name had been revealed as Thor, Prince of Asgard and God of Thunder, Steve sent his thoughts towards him. _'You're right in thinking that I am not of this world, and we will discuss it later.'_

A slight, imperceptible nod before Steve spoke aloud. "Then prove it, and fight on our side."

Thor nodded once more. "It is agreed."

For all that he hummed with malice and anger in the Force, Loki was surprisingly relaxed about being taken back into custody. Arms still chained, he simply offered forwards his wrists before being dragged towards the landed quinjet.

They reached the helicarrier just a few hours later, Loki promptly being shipped off for interrogation.

The interrogation room turned out to be a metal and glass cylinder designed for only the most dangerous beings on the planet. They all watched Fury's interrogation over monitors, watched how he explained the thirty-thousand-foot drop Loki would experience if he so much as scratched the glass. For whatever reason, it didn't concern the off-worlder in the slightest. As a matter of fact, he looked rather amused by the mere idea. Loki did not so much as shift his weight during the interview. Rather he stood shock still, somehow managing to make his stiff form look relaxed and at ease. Steve could tell all-too-well that the off-worlder was tense, for one reason or another. Beside him, Thor was as tense as a drawn bow.

Just before the camera cut out, Loki turned to the camera and smirked.

For a long minute they all sat in silence, nothing more than the awkward shift giving away their discomfort. It was Banner who broke the silence.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he."

Steve flickered his eyes to Thor. "You know him better than any of us do. What's his play?"

"My brother," Thor's voice was killed but booming, filling the space in a way other's voices didn't, "has amassed an army called the Chitauri. They are not of Asgard or any other known world. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him Midgard, most likely in return for the Tesseract."

Had Steve really been a 1940s human from Earth, he would have been horrified and astonished all at once. However, Steve was not a 1940s human from Earth, and thus the shock of the invading off-world army was outshone by the mere idea of the Chitauri. "An army from another universe?"

"So he's building another portal," Banner offered. "That's what he needs Eric Selvig for."

Thor snapped to attention. "Selvig?"

"An astrophysicist," Banner offered.

"A friend," Thor corrected.

Natasha leant back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest. "Dr. Selvig is under some kind of spell, along with one of ours."

"What I want to know is why Loki let us take him," Steve added. "He's hardly leading an army from here, which means he has some sort of play."

Banner shifted awkwardly. "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki." He looked beyond uncomfortable when every set of eyes in the room flicked to him. "I mean, the guy's head is like a bag full of cats. I can practically smell crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak of Loki," Thor sighed. "He may be beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother."

Natasha rolled her eyes. "He's killed eighty people in two days, Thor."

The Asgardian replied after a short pause.

"He's adopted."

There was another awkward pause, this one longer than the last. "What does he need iridium for?"

At that particular moment, Tony gusted into the room as though he owned it. Which wasn't entirely uncommon for him; the man acted as though he owned just about everything. "It's a stabilizing agent." He was followed in by Agent Coulson, and Steve almost grimaced just at the sight of him. He hid it beneath an awkward shift and put the though of vintage cards from his mind.

"What it commons down to is that the iridium will keep the portal from collapsing like it did with SHIELD," Coulson offered.

Tony pat Thor's shoulder, ignoring the Asgardian's disgruntled look. "No hard feelings, Point Break," he said with yet another reference Steve didn't understand. "You've got a mean swing. Also it means that the portal can stay open for as long as Loki wants and will be as big as Loki wants." He turned around, as though look for something that wasn't there and Steve rolled his eyes at his friend's antics. "Uh, raise the main mast! Ship the top sails!" He turned and looked at the computer of one of the SHIELD personnel running the ship. "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice but we did!"

"Tony," Steve sighed in exasperation. "Serious matter here."

In fairness, the man was playing Galaga. The little icon drifted back and forth across the screen as the agent looked back in silence, hand hovering over the mouse (and why these Earthlings called those things _mice_ of all things was beyond him, but there we go) but not actually touching it.

One of the agents, a high ranking woman Steve recognized as Assistant Director Maria Hill, rolled her eyes. "He turns."

Tony did so, at the same time subtly placing a chip beneath Fury's desk, to the complete oblivion of everyone else in the room.

"Well," he drawled out. "That sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials are things Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component they still need is a power source. A high energy density, something that can give the cube a kick start."

AD Hill rolled her eyes at Tony. "When did you become an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

Steve sighed. "Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?"

Rather than Tony, it was Dr. Banner - Bruce - that answer. "He's gotta heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million kelvin just to break through the coulomb barrier."

"Unless Selvig figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect," Tony added, clicking a pen in a way that went beyond thoughtful and into excited. The emotion rolled off him in waves, and for all that the engineer was superbly skilled at hiding his emotions on the outside, in the Force everything leapt from him in a display likely caused by his outer repression.

Bruce hummed in agreement. "If he did that, he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion with any reactor on the planet."

"Finally," Tony grinned at the other scientist, "someone who speaks English."

By galactic standards, the science they were discussing was beyond what any school child would learn, but certainly something that was taught in science classes at universities across the galaxy. While a little more advanced than the average science class, it was simple in comparison to the great mysteries of the galaxy: the Force, how hyperspace engines worked, and finally the meaning of life. But Steve never studied science at the Jedi Temple, and rather preferred to take on the more literary and artistic classes. Of course, Steve could also pilot two dozen different types of ships and analyse the future with the Force, but the advanced sciences had never been his cup of tea.

"Is that what just happened?" He wondered aloud.

Tony grabbed Bruce's hand and shook it slowly, more slowly than Steve had expected the man to be able to. Their eyes glimmered gently, a shared respect for one another.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions? Unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Bruce looked a little taken aback by the last bit, but ducked his head awkwardly and said, "Thanks."

They never got a chance to locate the Tesseract, and more accurately Loki's forces hit them hard in the face with explosive arrows and a plan to bring the helicarrier down from the inside, with intense knowledge of SHIELD's innerworkings from a brainwashed agent and a clever plan to seriously piss off one Dr. Bruce Banner.

It was hardly a genius plan, nothing in comparison to the strategies Steve had studied in the Before with the other crechlings and Padawans.

But it was painfully, horribly effective, leaving the helicarrier crippled and their little task force divided and scared.

Despite their losses, they did gain an asset as well.

Clinton Francis Barton was in his early thirties, with shaggy blonde hair leaning towards brown and light blue eyes. There were defined smile lines around his mouth, and despite him being thoroughly normal in everyway his mere presence was enough to life Steve's spirits. The other man was in a dull mood, unhappy with just about everything but somehow optimistic towards the future and the incoming alien invasion. From what little Steve knew of him, the archer seemed to be the sort to run head first into a disaster and somehow make it to the other side unharmed.

As soon as Clint joined them, Natasha's spirits lifted as well.

The serious woman sat back against the desktop, leaning her weight onto it with crossed arms. Despite her severe expression, her emotions pulled away from her in waves, each one filled with love and affection for the archer, with an underlying note of worry and desperation. Her thoughts were as clear as day: would Clint Barton ever be the same person again?

Steve knew the answer to that question, and deep down so did Natasha.

A person was never quite the same after being brainwashed and used and destroyed from the inside out.

Somewhere along the way they'd lost Banner, the man falling from the helicarrier as the giant, green monster Steve had been warned of. Theories suggested that Banner was immortal due to his green counterpart, and thus they weren't too worried about the man. At around the same time, Thor had ben jettisoned from the specially designed cell Loki had been in, sending him crashing into the field bellow. Despite their dramatic exit, Steve had no doubt that both would meet them in New York.

Since Clint's unwanted raid on the helicarrier, they had all been in poor spirits. With the lifeless body of a man that didn't deserve to die resting, cooling, in a morgue, how could they not be? His Captain America trading cards were splattered with blood on the table before them.

The forty-eight year old agent of SHIELD had been one of Thor's first human friends, and despite the fact that the Asgardian man was not with them at that point in time, he had been the only one to witness Coulson's death.

To make matters worse, Coulson had been killed by Thor's own brother.

Something, as cold as ice and as wretched as the violent river rapids leading towards a fall, whispered to Steve through the Force, deception and nerves tied up together as though whomever was planning whatever was being planned thought that the deceived might notice the deception and refuse to do whatever they were being manipulated into doing. It didn't sound good, but Steve kept his nerves quiet. There was no point in stirring up more fear and disquiet amongst them.

"They were in Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them." Fury's gaze flickered over to Steve then back across the others.

Carefully, he picked up one card and watched as the light flickered over the surface.

Fury continued. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming." The man let out a hefty sigh that didn't come through in the Force, an almost sure sig he felt none of the emotions he was projecting. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes."

Disgusted by Fury's speech, Tony rose from where he had been sitting and walked off, head shaking as he went.

"You expect us to be your Avengers?" Steve queried the SHIELD Director, though the answer hung heavy in the Force.

He didn't receive an answer, but Fury's actions spoke loud enough.


End file.
